Camp Tobanga
by SeaWraith46
Summary: Max and her best friend Brooke grew up in Seattle and every summer Brooke has gone to Camp Tobanga near Arcadia Bay, Oregon. The summer before their senior year in high school, Brooke finally convinces Max to spend a summer there as a counselor. Once there, Max mostly hangs out with Brooke, until she's paired with counselor Chloe Price to look after a group of campers.


****I currently have no plans to finish this fic****

* * *

Max sighed and sat down on the bed, pulling her messenger bag into her lap to once again go through its contents. She heard the door of the cabin open and someone walk inside but didn't look up until she realized they had called her name twice. "Huh? What?"

Brooke laughed and walked over to stand in front of Max, her weight balanced on one hip and her arms crossed. "Max, you're stalling."

"No, I'm not, I'm…" Max trailed off, dropping her gaze back to her bag as a slight blush burned on her cheeks.

Shaking her head, Brooke stepped forward to briefly place a hand on Max's shoulder. "Relax, this'll be fun, I promise. We get to hang out at camp together all summer, how could this not be awesome?"

Max shrugged, rubbing at her bicep with one hand. "We still don't know for sure that we'll get put in charge of the same group of kids."

"It's pretty much a done deal, though, like I told you earlier. Most of the other counselors already know each other because they're all from that town nearby, Arcadia Bay. The person who pairs up the counselors knows that so she'll probably just put all the friends together, which leaves the two of us with no one else to be paired with."

"I hope so," Max said, taking the hand Brooke offered her and letting herself be pulled up from the bed. "This is going to be a pretty sucky summer if I have to spend it with someone I don't know."

Brooke rolled her eyes and turned to walk toward the door of the cabin. "It wouldn't kill you to make a new friend, you know."

Max winced as she followed Brooke out the door. "I know. But, like you said, most of them are already friends and I don't think they're looking to meet anyone new."

"You could try being friends with that punk girl, Chloe. She mostly hangs out by herself," Brooke said, grabbing Max's shoulder to steer her in the direction of the dining hall.

"What?" Max spluttered, then snorted when she caught sight of the poorly concealed grin on Brooke's face. "No thanks. She doesn't strike me as the most sociable person. And besides, she scares me a little bit. Even if she is kind of cute."

"I didn't think punk girls were your type."

"They're not! Did you miss the part where I said she scares me?"

"But if you think she's cute you have to talk to her. Come on," Brooke said, nudging Max with her elbow when she gave her a less than enthused look. "I dare you to talk to her."

"What are you, five? Why would I talk to someone who scares me?"

"I'm pretty sure the most punk things she does are wearing a beanie in eighty degree weather and smoking weed in her room while she's here. She's not gonna eat you, Max."

"I still think I'm going to put her on my list of people to avoid."

"I still think you should try to talk to her."

"Whatever," Max said, frowning. "Do you think the list of counselors will be posted yet?"

"It should be," Brooke said as they mounted the steps leading to the door of the dining hall. "Your stalling made us late for breakfast."

Max mumbled an apology that was lost in the murmur of conversation coming through the screen door of the cafeteria. Brooke opened the door and Max followed her inside, heading straight for the bulletin board on the other side of the room as Brooke stopped to talk to a few of the other counselors who were already seated and eating breakfast. Once she reached the list, Max skimmed it frantically, feeling Brooke come up beside her a few seconds later.

"Ah, damn," Brooke said when she located her name near the top of the list. "I'm going to be doing science activities with Warren. Sorry, Max, I guess I was wrong about how they were going to pair people up."

"I think I can manage as long as I'm not with…" Max groaned as she saw the name listed next to hers.

"Holy crap, you're with Chloe!" Brooke said, jabbing her finger at the list.

Max sighed, dragging a hand down her face. "Of course this would happen."

"Of course what would happen?" asked a voice behind them and Max turned to see Warren walking over.

"Max and I were expecting to be paired up," Brooke explained. "And Max just found out she's going to be with Chloe instead."

"Damn," Warren said, leaning forward to squint at the list. "That's rough. Too bad you can't do science stuff with me instead. It would be a blast."

"Thanks, Warren," Brooke said as she punched him in the shoulder. "I'm sure I would be no fun to do science stuff with at all."

Warren grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. "No, that's not what I meant, I…I'm sure it'll be fun hanging out with you, Brooke. And, Max, it won't be all bad. At least Chloe's kinda hot, right?"

"Max thinks so, too," Brooke said with a grin.

"What? No, that's not...what I said was…ugh." Max turned back to the bulletin board as Brooke and Warren laughed. "And it says I'm with the five and six year-olds. Great. I'm terrible with children."

"Well, since you're with the little kids you'll get nights and weekends off—they're only here during the day," Brooke said.

Max's face brightened as she turned to Brooke. "That's right! And you're just doing activities so you won't have to look after any kids at those times either, so we can still hang out."

Brooke grinned and hooked her arm around Max's shoulders. "See, it won't be all bad. We'll still have a good time together, promise."

"Attention, everyone!" a voice called out from behind them and they spun around to see Rachel, the head counselor, standing on a chair in the middle of the dining hall. "Could everyone please have a seat? I have some last minute announcements."

Brooke and Max hurried over to the nearest table, elbowing each other as they silently fought for the seat closest to the plate of bacon. Max glanced over to see Rachel giving them a slightly disapproving look and immediately conceded, hanging her head slightly as she sat down.

"Okay," Rachel said, a large smile on her face as she surveyed the roughly two dozen teenagers staring back at her. "Welcome to your first official day as counselors at Camp Tobanga!"

Several people cheered softly and Rachel's already impossibly bright smile grew even more radiant. She waved them quiet before continuing. "Since we've already had a week of training together I won't bother with introductions or going over the rules. The only thing I want to remind you of is that you and your actions represent Camp Tobanga today and throughout our ten weeks together. This is a special place for a lot of us because we had great counselors here when we were younger so do you best to live up to that example.

"I would also like to remind those counselors with our youngest campers and those doing day activities that since you won't be looking after kids in the evenings and on weekends, you'll have a considerable amount of free time. You can do whatever you want during that time, provided that you don't leave the camp grounds and don't do anything against our rules. You're also encouraged to help other counselors look after their groups of campers and participate in activities with them.

"So, that's it, have a good time everybody, and be at the camp entrance in half an hour to greet your campers!"

Rachel climbed down from the chair as the normal buzz of conversation resumed in the cafeteria. Max watched Rachel head toward the door, contemplating getting up to talk to her about changing the counselor pairings. She sighed and was about to look back to her plate when movement near the door caught her eye. Chloe had appeared from seemingly out of nowhere and was now talking to Rachel, saying something in a low voice that caused Rachel to laugh and link arms with Chloe. Rachel pushed open the door and they both walked through, but at the last second Chloe's head turned and caught Max looking at them. Chloe winked at her, a small smirk pulling at the corners of her lips, and Max instantly dropped her gaze, her cheeks burning. Luckily Brooke was distracted arguing with one of the other counselors about the best way to get a spoon to hang from the end of someone's nose and didn't notice Max's blush. Breathing a sigh of relief, Max quickly shoveled eggs, some bacon, and half a piece of toast into her mouth as one of the kitchen staff brought a tub of soapy water to their table.

Everyone at the table quickly worked together to scrape and wash their dishes clean before returning them to the kitchen window and exiting the dining hall. Max trailed slightly behind the group of girls that was heading toward the cabin they had all stayed in the past week. She knew she needed to move her belongings from the cabin all the female counselors had been using to the new room she would be sharing with Chloe, but was hoping that if she took long enough she could get her stuff there after Chloe had already left to go meet the campers.

"You make no sense, Max," she mumbled to herself as she kicked at a large pebble in her path. "You're going to be spending most of the next ten weeks with this girl, you should probably be able to spend ten minutes in a room alone with her."

Her half-hearted pep-talk did nothing to speed up her steps, however, and by the time she made it to the cabin to retrieve her duffel and sleeping bag, all the other counselors had already come and gone. Still somewhat dragging her feet, Max turned in the direction of the main office of the camp, behind which was a large cabin with half a dozen rooms for the counselors that didn't have to look after campers overnight.

She walked into the cabin and found her name on the second door on the right, pausing before entering to listen for anyone inside. Hearing nothing, she pushed open the door and stepped into the room. It was small but not cramped, with two beds on opposite walls, a rug between them, and a window across from the door looking out into the woods. One of the beds was covered in a rolled out sleeping bag and had a backpack sitting next to it, which Max assumed were Chloe's. She set her belongings down on the other bed and sat down on the mattress, pulling out her instant camera to fuss with it until she needed to head to the camp entrance.

The sound of rustling leaves drifted through the open window and Max looked up to see a doe treading softly beneath the trees. She rose as quietly as possible and snuck to the window, raising her camera to her eyes. The doe took several more steps before stopping mid-step with one of its front hooves raised, its head tilted slightly as its ears twitched to listen to some sound.

Max snapped the photo just as the door to the room banged open, startling her so badly she dropped her camera, which she managed to catch by all but diving onto the floor. Heart hammering, she turned to see Chloe staring at her from the doorway.

"Uh, hi," Chloe said, taking in the sight of a very startled and rapidly reddening Max lying on the floor with a camera clutched to her chest. "Sorry for scaring you."

"It's okay you didn't—well, you did but it's okay—I mean, it almost wasn't because I dropped my camera but…uh, I caught it," Max spluttered, holding up her camera as proof while Chloe continued to stare at her.

"Uh huh," Chloe said, that same smirk from before returning to her face. "Well, good on you for catching your camera, then."

Max nodded, not trusting herself to speak without saying something else silly, and got up from the floor.

"Did you get the shot?" Chloe asked unexpectedly, almost causing Max to jump again.

"Did I…what?"

"Get the shot. It looked like you were taking a picture when I came in."

"Oh, uh…" Max glanced at the floor and found the picture that had fallen out of the camera when it fell. "Looks like I did," she said as she bent down to pick it up.

"Nice," Chloe said, sitting down on her bed and pulling her backpack into her lap. She unzipped one of the pockets and began to rifle through it, leaving Max standing by the window, unsure how to proceed.

"Do you want it?" Max burst out, her blush intensifying when Chloe looked up at her. "The picture, I mean," she clarified, holding the photo out in Chloe's direction.

"Um…sure, why not?" Chloe pushed her bag onto the bed and walked over to Max, her fingers brushing lightly against Max's as she took the picture.

Chloe looked down at the photo in her hands, a small smile growing across her face. "Thanks, Max. It's a good one," she said as she tucked the picture into the back pocket of her jeans. She gave Max another wink before spinning on her heel and heading back to her bed to finish going through her backpack.

Max gaped at her for a moment, her hand still outstretched from handing Chloe the photo. It took a few seconds before she noticed and dropped her arm back to her side, practically sprinting to the door and into the hallway.


End file.
